1) One's vision is dependent on visual information travelling from one's eyes to the visual areas of one's brain, and then being processed, all of which does not happen instantaneously, but takes a finite amount of time, however small.

Hello fellow members,

Vision and visual information does not exist - what exists is the optically equipped and visually informed embrained observer and the photonic particles (datergy) which impact the observer's retinas after bouncing off the surface of (say) the apple, which when converted travels to the visual cortex and informs the brain of that which its exterior sensorial receptors (the eyes) have scanned.

Every object in the cosmos changes - if it did not - it would not exist in the first place. In the brief eventitive interstice betwixt the photonic bombardment of the eyes and the receipt of the visual datergy by the central nervous system the apple and the observer undergo certain changes. Both the apple and the observer have very slightly changed in the intervening period of delay. Even if the transfer was instantaneous the apple and the observer would not be EXACTLY the same objects as before for quantum change is continuous.

The delay is over so quickly that it would not even allow you time to blink. If you however you look at any object around you then blink, the object appears exactly the same as before you blinked. However, if somebody suddenly turned off the light at the same moment you blinked - when you reopened you eyes you would not be able to see the apple. Does that mean that the apple exists in a different existential modality? Yes, and it means that you do too - for you cannot see in the dark. It is possible that the apple has remained less changed, for  its rate of decomposition will have slowed slightly because of the absence of ultra-violet rays. But *nature* is unconcerned (sorry about the personification) with such tiny delays.

The complicated neuro-physiological variables of evolutionary survival involve concessionary modification of organic structure. In a successful species the centre of the neural-structure is physiologically located in what evolutionary elimination (sorry about the reification)  has deemed to be the safest structural position. In human animals, for structural reasons connected with its upright bipedal anatomy the command-centres of the body-wide neural-system are located at the top of the body within the skull out of harms way where it is protected from the potentially injurious environment within a thin bony brain-case. In other words after millions of years of trial and error *nature* is satisfied that the optical nerve length is adequate for the successful continuation of the species. In other words as far as *nature* (sic) is concerned the eye-brain configuration is the best possible and the length of the optic nerve is in accordance with optimum survival.

2) Therefore, the content of one's vision in the present is always the world of the past, however recent.

The *past* it is a reificative convenience that does not exist - it is no more than a useful fiction. That which once was Caesar  has now changed its existentially modality and still exists - though in changed forms, (some of which  could be in that coffee you are drinking.)  ;-)

3) The past, however recent, cannot itself exist in the present, by definition, although a representation of it can.

Ontologically Representations of antecedal visual events  do not exist. What exists is the presenting brain - what we see is only presentable to the neurologically equipped presenter.  What exist are contemporay objects (which we reify as such) which remind us of what was once observed prior to change.  Visual brain content does not exist - only that which is contained and its container exist. (i.e. the skull and the thinking meat therein)  Only the regarder and that which is regarded exists. When gazing at a *representation* one is not regarding the *past* one is regarding that which is present.

A picture, a sound, a model of  *the past* is not a representation of *the past* it is a currently existing configuration of dried paint particles or electrons on a PC screen or  some other material medium,  which is intelligible only when it is regarded by the an embrained human  - it is not the *past* he sees, but an image that reminds him of certain objects before he and they changed the existential modality.

4) Therefore, what one directly experiences, visually, when one looks at the world cannot be the world itself, and must instead be merely a mental simulation of it, generated by one's brain from the information that it receives from one's eyes.

If one looks at a brick wall - closes one's eyes - then opens them again - then bangs one's head hard on the brickwork, one will soon discover that it does not exist as a mere mental simulation, generated by one's brain from the information that it received from one's eyes before they were closed. This is *nature's* way of dealing with the situation.

Any doubts are easily expunged by using the head,  which is also a useful sensor, specially when used as a battering-ram (Dr. Jonson preferred to kick a stone or recommend his companion to do so) and although there might be another small delay before an egg-like lump appears,  one can be certain that both the headbanger and the wall exist.  :-) This is why nature is content with the current deterministic catenulate design node as far as the human sensor is concerned and the small delay is not a survival threat to our species.

Best wishes,

Jud Evans
Athenaeum Library of Philosophy.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/study.htm